Out of Africa (Blu-ray)

(Universal Home Entertainment, 4.27.2010)

When people complain about the films undeservedly receiving the Best Picture Oscar, Out of Africa is one of the frequent targets. As with The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love, Sydney Pollack’s film is the kind of lush, romantic drama that drives some (especially fanboys) nuts. Often dismissed as a slick piece of Hollywood kitsch, Out of Africa succeeds in part because it’s a slick piece of Hollywood kitsch, with echoes of The Letter, Casablanca, The African Queen and Lawrence of Arabia. One could easily imagine Katharine Hepburn or Ingrid Bergman playing Danish writer Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen) -- but Meryl Streep is a much better choice.

Regardless of how you feel about the rest of Out of Africa, its main asset is Streep. I’m not sure how accurate her Danish accent is, but while some actors use accents as a crutch (even Streep herself at times), here it is simply one of several tools helping the actor inhabit a complex character. Streep’s performance is typically mannered, but her mannerisms are actually much subtler than usual. Compare her work here to her work in The French Lieutenant’s Woman or Sophie’s Choice. She is also more attractive than ever, with Pollack and cinematographer David Watkin clearly loving her face. Notice how fluid she seems onscreen while all the other women are stiff. As big-game hunter Denys Finch Hatton, Robert Redford changes little over the course of the film, but Streep is a chameleon, constantly changing to reflect the character’s emotional turmoil.

Still, Out of Africa isn’t perfect. While Streep works well with Redford, Klaus Maria Brandauer (as her husband) and the great Michael Kitchen (as Finch Hatton’s friend), the scenes with the other Kenya settlers are a bit strained and the attitude toward the native Kenyans is close to condescending. Plus, Finch Hatton’s British accent is strangely missing.

What’s important is that Out of Africa is big and seductively romantic. Making its Blu-ray debut on its twenty-fifth anniversary, the film -- sometimes dismissed as a National Geographic travelogue -- is certainly marvelous to look at. Watkin (Help!, Catch-22, Chariots of Fire) is a great cinematographer, equally adept at interiors and exteriors. His heavily backlit images were too soft in the previous DVD incarnations of Out of Africa, but are strong and detailed here. The widescreen shots of the African landscape perfectly capture its dangerous beauty, especially during the flying sequence. Unfortunately, the artificiality of two rear-projection scenes is even more annoying on Blu-ray.

One aspect of Blu-ray often ignored is its ability to heighten performances. Actors rely heavily upon their eyes and Blu-ray clarifies the emotions coming from the intense eyes of Streep, Redford, Brandauer and Kitchen.

With one exception, the extras are all carryovers from the 2000 DVD. In his commentary, Pollack discusses how the film deviates from historical truth for dramatic effect. The emphasis is on the difficulties of making a film on location in Africa and on the contributions of his collaborators, particularly Streep and Redford. Pollack explains that he cast Kitchen, a master of subtlety, after seeing him in a television production because he felt his style would not clash with the approaches of his two stars.

The other major extra is A Song of Africa, a 73-minute look at Dinesen’s life (with dozens of black-and-white photographs) and the making of the film. This doc includes appearances by Pollack, Streep, screenwriter Kurt Luedtke and Judith Thurman, whose biography of the writer is one of the sources for Out of Africa. Pollack says a key to understanding Dinesen was that she “wanted to be considered sensual, but wasn’t considered sensual by others.” Thurman says she was drawn to Finch Hatton because “she worshipped virility.”

John Barry is especially eloquent in examining his score. The film’s main theme was inspired by the look of wonder on Streep’s face on the train while taking Blixen to Kenya. Barry also created a counter-melody to convey her sense of loss.

The only new extra on this Blu-ray is fifteen minutes of deleted scenes, mostly consisting of trims from the beginnings or ends of existing scenes, as with Blixen’s first sight of the interior of her house. Though all these shots are extraneous, one solves the riddle of why those fighting the Germans during the Great War are lined-up to greet Blixen when she arrives at their camp. -- Michael Adams